About Me

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Geekiest Book Ever

My Dearest Kendrah,

Wow. You were right. It is yellow! And not a nice spring day sunny kind of yellow either. More of an “evil Yellow Face, it burns us!” kind of yellow. Nothing a little paint can’t solve. The king has offered to try and get some of the folks from Habitat for Hobbits to come by and give you a hand with painting. You’ll need to do all the high parts though…or get lots of ladders…

As mentioned above, I am reading what could possibly be the geekiest book ever written. Geekier than Tom Shippey’s “Road to Middle Earth”. Geekier than “The Tolkien Quiz Book” from 1979. Yes, even geekier than all ten volumes of “The History of Middle Earth”. The title of this jewel: “The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary” written by editors of the OED.

Now, you know how much I love the OED. And you must be aware of the many lunch breaks where I’ve sat in my office eating a tuna salad sandwich and reading the online version. But this may be going too far. A book ABOUT the OED? If that weren’t geeky enough, let’s add a little Tolkien. Throw in a 20-sided die and a bootleg VHS copy of the Star Wars holiday special and I might as well be living in my parents’ basement! (I mean, if I had parents…).

Geekier or not, it’s a fascinating read, if you enjoy that sort of thing. And it would be fascinating even without the Tolkien connection (but I bet it wouldn’t sell as well!). I would never have thought that the history of a dictionary could be so interesting. And I guess merely reading it is not as geeky as writing it? Right?

Well, I need to go and finish my chapter before bedtime. It was good to see you this weekend, even for such a brief time. (By the way, you forgot the tape and trucks!) I hope to talk to you soon.